A lawsuit is ordering YouTube/Google to hand over its logs of viewers and members to Viacom, citing "that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips." Bullshit, I say.

Traditional media is going broke because user created content is often better than the crap put out by the 'professionals', and, the market is telling us that traditional content is overpriced in general. Viacom and all of the RIAA types are just looking payday.

Napster, YouTube, and Google are/were great freeware tools as long as they remain and act as freeware. Where they get in trouble is when they start/started acting like a business and started competing in the market with traditional media. Google would do well to simply deleted or not collect data on it's users. However, much of their BUSINESS model requires them to collect marketing data to remain OUTRAGEOUSLY profitable. If Google continues to collect marketing data in the way they have been, they will continue to get sued and subpoenaed from all quarters - govt, corporate, and private.

In time, Google will go the way of Napster. It may remain a business but it will no longer be everyone's premier web tool. It will be replace by the tool developed by the next smart guy who more interested in purity information that is part and parcel to the 'wild west' feel of the web.

As an aside, I would recommend that anyone who is interested in web commerce google "The Economics of Free." There are several articles and papers on this subject. The Economics of Free IS the business model for information technology and anyone who refuses to accept this is doing so at their own peril.

If Google dies, it will be their own fault.

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I am the Devil and I am here to do the Devil's work.

But then again, as long as the net is unbound, there will always be a new quasi-legal frontier of freedom for the internet to grow through.

"Traditional media" will eventually be severely lowered in price. Music is a prime example. Thanks to technology, it's not that expensive to record music, and mass-producing it is even cheaper. Underground bands are different, but as far as major labels go, per unit, a typical CD barely costs a dollar. Yet they're trying to get away with charging up to 25 bucks a fix. Keeee-reist.

I also think that is bullshit ,just bullshit. but then again, who really buys cd's??? i am in a band and yes, mass production of records is very cheap but then again my band does not make much moneys due to the fact were a gypsy band.